Diocese of Charlotte in opposition to Vatican II and Canon Law

 As noted here:

"The Diocese of Charlotte – headed by Bishop Michael Martin, who notoriously banned the Latin Mass in his diocese – is siding with a school that expelled children after their parents complained about the school’s adoption of woke ideology, including graphic, sexually explicit LGBTQ+ books.

The lawsuit by parents of the expelled children, Doug and Nicole Turpin, Turpin v. Charlotte Latin School, now before the North Carolina Supreme Court, “asks whether a private school can invite open dialogue and then expel students in retaliation for their parents’ protected speech.”

____________________________________________

My commentary

This decision represents an act of violence against the child's right to live his or her own sexuality in conformity with Christian principles: "Since each child or young person must be able to live his or her own sexuality in conformity with Christian principles, and hence be able to exercise the virtue of chastity, no educator — not even parents — can interfere with this right to chastity (cf. Matthew 18: 4-7)." ( Pontifical Council for the Family,  The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, No. 118).

The decision of the Diocese of Charlotte also represents an attack on parental rights. Vatican II teaches us that, in raising children, the responsibility of parents is primary: "Since parents have given life to their children, they have a very grave duty to educate them, and so are to be recognized as their primary and principal educators" (GE, No. 3). 

And Pope John Paul II, explaining the conciliar teaching more fully in Familiaris consortio No. 36, says that: "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others."

Canon Law is also very clear on this matter. Canon 793, 1., states that: "Parents as well as those who take their place are obliged and enjoy the right to educate their offspring; Catholic parents also have the duty and the right to select those means and institutions through which they can provide more suitably for the Catholic education of the children according to local circumstances" and Canon 1136 says that: "Parents have the most serious duty and the primary right to do all in their power to see to the physical, social, cultural, moral and religious upbringing of their children."

This inalienable right of parents has been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. In 1922, the State of Oregon attempted to enact legislation that would have forced all children to attend the public schools within that state. But the Supreme Court overturned that decision and established that "The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations."

The question before us: Will the Vatican intervene to ensure that Catholic teaching is upheld,  the rights of parents as primary educators of their children be respected and that Canon Law is adhered to?

The Biden DHS: Country's greatest terrorism threat comes from Trump supporters

 CV News reports:

"Internal documents from the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed that the country’s 'Domestic Terrorism threat' mostly comes from Trump supporters. 

The files also singled out people in the military and religious people as possible 'terrorism' threats.

The documents were released Friday by America First Legal, a conservative legal group founded by former Trump administration official Stephen Miller.

The group noted it obtained the 'internal files from the ‘Homeland Intelligence Experts Group’ via litigation with former Trump administration Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell 'against the Biden DHS.'

America First Legal wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Friday: 'The Brennan-Clapper intel group discussed how ‘most of the domestic terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president.’

'There is a political backdrop to all of this,' the document alleged. 'It is not like you want a political advantage, but people have attacked the government and its institutions for the last six years.'

John Brennan served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Obama administration while James Clapper served as the DNI for most of Obama’s presidency. 

Both were reported to be members of the DHS advisory committee that produced the documents."

The Biden Department of Homeland Security  id engaging in what the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel labelled the "techniques of degradation."

In his work of critical importance entitled "Man Against Mass Society," Marcel explains, "I understand by 'techniques of degradation' a whole body of methods deliberately put into operation in order to attack and destroy in human persons belonging to some definite class or other their self-respect, and in order to transform them little by little into mere human waste products, conscious of themselves as such, and in the end forced to despair of themselves, not merely at an intellectual level, but in the very depths of their souls.." (p. 42).

Through the fanatical employment of such techniques, radical leftists hope to smash down their opponents, to categorize them as mentally ill or as hate-filled "bigots" who cling to "worn out arguments" based upon an "archaic morality" which is rooted in Divine Revelation and Natural Law, as superstitious and backward people who need to be re-educated in order to fit into the new Culture of Lies. Such people are "domestic terrorists" who pose a direct threat to the corrupt New Order.

Marcel writes, "Having abandoned the behaviour of a thinking being, he [the fanatic of any stripe who seeks to impose rather than propose] has lost even the feeblest notion of what a thinking being, outside himself, could be. It is understandable therefore that he should make every effort to deny in advance the rights and qualifications of those whom he wishes to eliminate; and that he should regard all means to this end as fair. We are back here again at the techniques of degradation.." (p. 149).

For the Biden DHS, folks such as those pictured above are "domestic terrorists" and a threat to America.

Cardinal Cupich: Liar

Pro-LGBT Cardinal Cupich is asserting that Saint Pope John Paul II would have supported Francis's crackdown on the Traditional Latin Mass. See here.

What to make of this load of bovine scatology?

The facts:

In his Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei, Pope John Paul II said that, "Respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition...for the use of the Roman Missal according to the 1962 edition."

And, in his book "Salt of the Earth," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger said, "I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It's impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent."

To be sure, Vatican II called for an extended use of the vernacular. But nowhere did Vatican II call for the Latin language to be abolished from the liturgy. And anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of the facts or a liar. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) No. 36 states clearly that, "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites."

Number 54 of this same Vatican II document teaches that, "In Masses which are celebrated with the people, a suitable place may be allotted to their mother tongue. This is to apply in the first place to the readings and "the common prayer," but also, as local conditions may warrant, to those parts which pertain to the people, according to the norm laid down in Art. 36 of this Constitution.

Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."

This is the teaching of Vatican II and the mind of the Church on the use of Latin and the attitude Catholics should have toward those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition. While we should thank God for those positive developments in the liturgy over the past 40 years (and contrary to what some "traditionalists" would have you believe there have been many), still, we must not foster an atmosphere of hostility toward those who prefer the Latin Mass. As Pope Benedict XVI has been teaching for so many years now, there is no "pre-Vatican II Church" and "Post-Vatican II Church." There is one Church with a continued Tradition and a richness of expression.

I am one of those Catholics who has always hoped and prayed for a "Reform of the Reform." As one of the few Catholics who has spent a considerable amount of time actually reading and studying the 16 documents of Vatican II, I look forward to that day when the teaching of the Council is actually followed. In both letter and spirit.

Is Francis showing respect for  "the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition...for the use of the Roman Missal according to the 1962 edition"?

The answer is obvious.  Cardinal Cupich, you are a liar.

Francis calls upon humanity to unite behind one world religion

 Francis is openly calling upon humanity to unite behind a one-world religion - see here.

As Francis leads so many souls to pantheism and a New humanitarian religion, it would help to reflect upon the words of Father Livio Fanzaga, known as the "radio priest" in Italy, in his book "Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist": "Atheism is the religion of the future.  At its root, atheism is always a negation of God and every such negation presupposes His affirmation. Rather than saying 'God does not exist,' a more sophisticated form of atheism will assert that 'Man is God, humanity is God, God is immanent in human history and in the lives of individuals.'  This is a form of religion which has assimilated the characteristics of a true religion.  Adore man and satisfy the religious needs present in every human heart.  Do not renounce the Kingdom of God, construct it, instead, on earth.  Just as the Catholic religion tries to unite all men under a supernatural principle represented in the person of the Vicar of Christ, so too, humanitarianism strives to unite all men and to conciliate all religions.  It seeks to institute universal peace by recognizing the supreme unifying authority of the Antichrist - perfect image of the immanent god in the world,  the man-god.  God did not become man.  The man-God is the savior of the world...Benson [Robert Hugh Benson] had greater foresight [than Feurbach and Marx].  At the turn of the century he clearly perceived that the crisis of faith will not be followed by the growth of atheism but by the rise of a new religion which deifies man...The new religion will have its own ministers of cult, its own rites and ceremonies, and its own books to celebrate those rites.  Churches and abbeys will be transformed into temples of the new religion of humanitarianism and the Mass will be displaced by the celebration of the new rites.  The statue of Christ will disappear and in its place the statue of 'man' will be raised up in the form of 'Apollo,' symbol of corporeal beauty and virility....While churches in which Christ is still adored and Our Lady honored will be empty, those of the new religion will be filled to capacity...Man will go to church to worship himself.  He will incense the altar of his own 'virility' and the statue of 'maternity' and 'continuous life.'  The crisis of faith is the crisis of the supernatural.  Man no longer believes in a God whom he cannot measure or control and who is different from him." (pp. 119-120).

Is there any real doubt that this new humanitarian religion is now rising?  The way of the new religion of the man-God is being prepared by agnostics, atheists, apostates, lovers of this world who have embraced hedonism and materialism and who have nothing but contempt for the true Church, her ministers, sacraments, devotions [especially those to Our Lady] and the lowly faithful who have consecrated themselves to the Immaculata.

As Catholics, we pray - in the Nicene Creed -  "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.."

All orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is the only Son of God and that, "There is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be saved." (Acts 4: 12).

But the world is being prepared to believe differently.  Many are now willing to abandon the only Son of God for the new religion which will proclaim the divinity of man.  President Obama, while speaking to a group of Christian clergy several years ago at the Easter Prayer Breakfast, referred to Jesus not as the "only Son of God" but as "a son of God."  And he received applause from his audience.

What is this but the spirit of Antichrist?  In 1 John 4: 2-3, we read, "This is how you can recognize God's Spirit: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, while every spirit that fails to acknowledge him does not belong to God.  Such is the spirit of the antichrist which, as you have heard, is to come; in fact, it is in the world already."

Recommended reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 441-445.

Did Francis remove Father Frank Pavone from the priesthood for blasphemy or because he took a firm stand against the Culture of Death?

The story is told of an atheist who came to the monastery where Father Solanus Casey served as the holy porter. Father Casey looked him in the eye and told him, "You are a damned fool."

The definition of "goddamned" from Merriam Webster here.

So what to make of Father Frank Pavone's usage of "goddamned" when referring to those who promote the murder of innocent children in the womb?  Does it merit his removal from the priesthood?  See here.

In his work Liberalism is a Sin, Father Felix Sarda y Salvany explains that:

"Liberalism never gives battle on solid ground; it knows too well that in a discussion of principles it must meet with irretrievable defeat. It prefers tactics of recrimination, and under the sting of a just flagellation whiningly accuses Catholics of  lack of charity in their polemics. This is also the ground which certain Catholics, tainted with Liberalism, are in the habit of taking.

Let us see what is to be said on this score. We Catholics, on this point as on all others, have reason on our side, whilst Liberals have only its shadow. In the first place a Catholic can handle his Liberal adversary openly, if such he be in truth; no one can doubt this. If an author or a journalist makes open profession of Liberalism and does not conceal his Liberal predilections what injury can be done him in calling him a Liberal? Si palman res est, repetitio injuria non est: "to say what everybody knows is no injury." With much stronger reason to say of our neighbor what he every instant says of himself cannot justly offend. And yet how many Liberals, especially those of the easygoing and moderate type, regard the expressions "Liberal" and "friend of Liberals," which Catholic adversaries apply to them as offensive and uncharitable!

Granting that Liberalism is a bad thing, to call the public defenders and professors of Liberalism bad is no want of charity.

The law of justice, potent in all ages, can be applied in this case. The Catholics of today are no innovators in this respect.  We are simply holding to the constant practice of antiquity. The propagators and abettors of heresy have at all times been called heretics as well as its authors. As the Church has always considered heresy a very grave evil, so has she always called its adherents bad and pervert..."

See here.

Eric Clapton and the critical spirit: Resisting the fanaticized consciousness

 As noted here, Eric Clapton says, "..he was duped into getting the mRNA jab by subliminal messaging in pharmaceutical advertising — and urged others not to fall for it.

'Whatever the memo was, it hadn’t reached me,' he said, referring to the 'mass formation hypnosis' theory.

Credited to Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet, the theory essentially points to a sort of mind control that has taken over society, allowing for unscrupulous leaders to easily manipulate populations into, for example, accepting vaccines or wearing face masks.

'Then I started to realize there was really a memo, and a guy, Mattias Desmet [professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium], talked about it,' Clapton continued. 'And it’s great. The theory of mass formation hypnosis. And I could see it then. Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere.'

Clapton recalled 'seeing little things on YouTube which were like subliminal advertising,' he said.

The former Cream guitarist also talked about his efforts with fellow British songwriter Van Morrison to speak up on behalf of other artists against vaccine requirements.

'My career had almost gone anyway. At the point where I spoke out, it had been almost 18 months since I’d kind of been forcibly retired,' he said, as pandemic restrictions shut down live events for months.

'I joined forces with Van and I got the tip Van was standing up to the measures and I thought, ‘Why is nobody else doing this?’ … so I contacted him.” He said Morrison, 76, complained that he wasn’t “allowed” to freely object to vaccine requirements.

'I was mystified, I seemed to be the only person that found it exciting or even appropriate. I’m cut from a cloth where if you tell me I can’t do something, I really want to know why.'

'My family and friends got scared, and I think they were scared on my behalf,' he added.

Clapton also admitted that he’d given up on recent news media, which he described as 'one-way traffic about following orders and obedience' — a decision that he said has helped him creatively and professionally."

______________________________________________

In his work of critical importance entitled "Man Against Mass Society," the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel writes, "..the fanatic never sees himself as a fanatic; it is only the non-fanatic who can recognize him as a fanatic; so that when this judgment, or this accusation, is made, the fanatic can always say that he is misunderstood and slandered...Fanaticism is essentially opinion pushed to paroxysm; with everything that the notion of opinion may imply of blinded ignorance as to its own nature....whatever ends the fanatic is aiming at or thinks he is aiming at, even if he wishes to gather men together, he can only in fact separate them; but as his own interests cannot lie in effecting this separation, he is led, as we have seen, to wish to wipe his opponents out. And when he is thinking of these opponents, he takes care to form the most degrading images of them possible - they are 'lubricious vipers' or 'hyenas and jackals with typewriters' - and the ones that reduce them to most grossly material terms. In fact, he no longer thinks of these opponents except as material obstacles to be overturned or smashed down. Having abandoned the behaviour of a thinking being, he has lost even the feeblest notion of what a thinking being, outside himself, could be. It is understandable therefore that he should make every effort to deny in advance the rights and qualifications of those whom he wishes to eliminate; and that he should regard all means to this end as fair. We are back here again at the techniques of degradation. It cannot be asserted too strongly or repeated too often that those the Nazis made use of in their camps - techniques for degrading their victims in their own eyes, for making mud and filth of them - and those which Soviet propagandists use to discredit their adversaries, are not essentially different though we should, in fairness, add that sadism, properly so called, is not to be found in the Russian camps." (pp. 135-136, 149).

Marcel explains that, "In fact, the greatest merit of the critical spirit is that it tends to cure fanaticism, and it is logical enough that in our own fanatical times the critical spirit should tend to disappear, should no longer even be paid lip service as a value."

But why is this? Why is our own time marked by the fanaticized consciousness? Dusty Sklar addresses the problem in his book "The Nazis and the Occult" in a Chapter entitled "Making an Obedient Mass." He writes, "Since World War II, several books have appeared which, while not dealing directly with the Nazis, are of invaluable aid in explaining how ordinary people can be transformed into automata, devoid of conscience or reason. They help us to understand, not only the Nazis, but millions of disciples of movements in Western countries today, who, almost overnight, are weaned from their customary behavior and attachments and indoctrinated with irrational beliefs. They are The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, The Mind Possessed by William Sargant, and The Rape of the Mind by Joost Meerloo. What is the formula for producing pliant followers? Take people, not wholly preoccupied with subsistence, who despair of being happy either in the present or in the future. They feel the sharp cutting edge of frustration. Either through some personal defect or because external conditions do not permit growth, they are eager to renounce themselves, since the self is insupportable. Many German men were in this position at the end of World War I. They came home to a civilian life without purpose, in which they had no part. In the chaos and collapse, vast armies of uprooted people felt threatened by the war's economic and social aftermath. National Socialism gave them a chance for a fresh start. As Eric Hoffer points out:

'People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement. The prospect of an individual career cannot stir them to a mighty effort, nor can it evoke in them faith and a singleminded dedication. They look on self-interest as on something tainted and evil; something unclean and unlucky. Anything undertaken under the auspices of the self seems to them foredoomed. Nothing that has its roots and reasons in the self can be good and noble. Their innermost craving is for anew life - a rebirth - or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both. If they join the movement as full converts they are reborn to a new life in its close-knit collective body, or if attracted as sympathizers they find elements of pride, confidence and purpose by identifying themselves with the efforts, achievements and prospects of the movement. To the frustrated a mass movement offers substitutes either for the whole self or for the elements which make life bearable and which they cannot evoke out of their individual resources.'

The movement, in turn, encourages self-renunciation. It does not attract the individual who believes in himself, nor does it care to; on the contrary, he is precisely the individual whom it ridicules." (pp. 149-150).

 

The pushback against tyranny

 

This is what things have come to.  See here.

mRNA Inventor stands with Archbishop Vigano

 

The inventor of mRNA is standing with Archbishop Vigano against the Satanic Globalist agenda to usher in a "Great Reset," a totalitarian New World Order in the service of Antichrist.  See here.

And...we we were warned.  See here

Placing Covid-19 "vaccine" refusers in a ghetto

 

From Doug Mainwaring at Lifesite News:

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have just issued new guidance allowing those who have received the COVID-19 vaccination to throw away their masks while those who have not received the jab must continue to wear them both indoors and outdoors, while continuing to practice social distancing.

'Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing,' CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky explained today. 'If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.'

The CDC update warns that those who 'are NOT fully vaccinated' must continue 'taking all precautions until you are fully vaccinated.'

USA Today suggests, 'The new recommendations from the CDC could also serve as an incentive for the tens of millions of eligible Americans who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get their shots.'

By issuing differing directives for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, the CDC is attempting to cast shame on those who must continue to wear masks.

For those of us who have no intention of being vaccinated, we are all Hester Prynnes now, wearing the 21st century version of The Scarlet Letter. And perhaps this is not far from the Nazi practice of forcing Jews to wear yellow stars, a psychological tactic to isolate and dehumanize.

Demonstrating just how dehumanizing and imprisoning the dreaded masks have been for all, and also demonstrating their obedience to the CDC, today Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Joni Ernst pulled off their masks and yelled “freedom” as they stepped off a Capitol Hill elevator after the CDC issued its revised guidance on indoor mask-wearing, according to a tweet by The Hill staff writer Alex Bolton."

_______________________________________________

In Man Against Mass Society, Gabriel Marcel writes, "In spite of everything that can be said to the contrary, is not the real and deep purpose of propaganda after all that of reducing men to a condition in which they lose all capacity for individual reaction? In other words, whether the men in control of propaganda intend this or not, is it not of the very nature of propaganda to degrade those whose attitudes it seeks to shape? And is it possible to be unaware of the fact that propaganda presupposes, in these men in control, a fundamental contempt for the rest of the human race? If we really attach any value at all to what a man is in himself, to his authentic nature, how can we assume the responsibility of passing him through the flattening-out machinery of propaganda?

What we ought to enquire into, however, is the nature of this contempt. There are, of course, fine shades of distinction that analysis ought to bring out: but is there any essential difference between the attitude of someone like Goebbels, for instance, and that of a chief of Communist propaganda? In both cases we are faced with a radical and cynical refusal to recognize the competence of individual judgment, an impatience with what appears, from this point of view, the intolerable presumptuousness of the individual. It is also broadly noteworthy that even the sense of truth cannot fail gradually and unconsciously to be destroyed in those who assume the task of manipulating opinion. It would require a very uncommon degree of simple-mindedness in a professional propagandist for him to remain very long convinced that his truth was the whole truth. Such simple-mindedness is only conceivable in a fanatic." (pp. 50-51).

We witness such a fanaticism in Rudolf Hess, who became deputy leader of the Third Reich, and who said: "It was granted to me for many years of my life to live and work under the greatest son whom my nation has produced in the thousand years of its history. Even if I could I would not expunge this period from my existence. I regret nothing. If I were standing once more at the beginning I should act once again as I did then, even if I knew that at the end I should be burnt at the stake. No matter what men do, I shall one day stand before the judgment seat of the Almighty. I shall answer to him, and I know that he will acquit me."

For such a fanatic, the State is beyond criticism. Its realm is utterly sacred. And even if one should have convictions which run counter to those of the State, these must be subordinated to the State. Hermann Goring expressed this belief when he said, "I have no conscience! Adolf Hitler is my conscience!" and "It is not I who live, but the Fuhrer who lives in me."

As Dusty Sklar notes, "In the suggestible state, the proselyte may attribute divine powers to his leader and accept dogmas which he might have rejected in a more normal state [see here for example]. Some of the men closest to Hitler, for example, acknowledged that they believed in his divinity. Himmler's masseur, Felix Kersten, relates that he once answered the phone and heard Hitler's voice before passing the phone on to Himmler, who exclaimed" 'You have been listening to the voice of the Fuhrer, you're a very lucky man.' Himmler told Kersten that Hitler's commands came 'from a world transcending this one.' and that they should be 'saved' by 'a figure of the greatest brilliance' which had 'become incarnate' in Hitler's person." (The Nazis and the Occult, p. 157).

Even intelligent people are not immune from the desire to conform. As Sklar notes, "We 'catch' ideas, too, because we want to be like others, particularly when we want not to be our despised selves. If we're satisfied, we don't need to conform, but if we're not, we imitate people whom we admire for having greater judgment, taste, or good fortune than we do. Obedience itself is a kind of imitation. Through conformity, the person who feels inferior is in no danger of being exposed. He's indistinguishable from the others. No one can single him out and examine his unique being. Conformity, in turn, sets him up to be further canceled out as an individual, to have no life apart from his collective purpose. This gives a movement tremendous power over the individual...Hoffer [Eric Hoffer] observes: 'Above all, he [the true believer] must never feel alone. Though stranded on a desert island, he must still feel that he is under the eyes of the group. To be cast out from the group should be equivalent to being cut off from life. This is undoubtedly a primitive state of being, and its most perfect examples are found among primitive tribes. Mass movements strive to approximate this primitive perfection, and we are not imagining things when the anti-individual bias of contemporary mass movements strikes us as a throwback to the primitive.'" (Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult, citing Eric Hoffer, p. 158).

What is a Christian to do when faced with a mass movement which seeks to subjugate the individual to the collective? A movement which "refuses to recognize the competence of individual judgment" and to enslave all in a prison of absolute conformity to the State? The Christian must prepare himself or herself by relinquishing the fear of public opinion and to pray for the Holy Spirit's gift of Fortitude.

It was the Cure of Ars [St. Jean Vianney, patron saint of parish priests] who said: "Do not try to please everybody. Try to please God, the angels, and the saints - they are your public." To which he added: "If you are afraid of other people's opinion, you should not have become a Christian."

There is always a price to be paid for following Jesus. Those committed to their Christian faith must expect a certain amount of unpopularity. God knows I live with this unpopularity every day. So be it. What difference does this make? It was St. Gerard Majella who asked, "Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?" To which I would add: look closely at the photograph at the top of this post. Think of the masses who succumbed to Hitler's propaganda of a "thousand year Reich" which would transform the world. Were these throngs of people any happier at the end of the war? Did the world satisfy their hearts? Were these people not left with the bitter and empty taste of defeat?

What is the absolute worse the world can do to us? Why do we fear the world so much? We must recall the words of Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., as he faced his firing squad: Viva Christo Rey! Long live Christ the King! For, as St. Paul of the Cross has told us, "The aversions that you experience, the ridicule, the scorn, the jokes, etc., should be received with great gratitude toward God. These serve as the pyre of love on which the victim of love is burned..."

The soul that gives itself completely to God can expect to be persecuted. Even killed. But what of it? We should remember the words of Jesus: "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one. Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows." (Luke 12: 4-7).

Before the Nazis began their genocide against the Jewish People, they first demonized them, comparing them (among other things) to rats emerging from a sewer.  The Jews were painted as disease-ridden vermin. Today, those who refuse blind obedience to the State and it's Covid propaganda must be demonized, must be made out to be somehow "unclean" and disease-ridden and relegated to the fringes of society.

Preparation for World Dictatorship.  Preparation for Antichrist.

Governor Andrew Cuomo blasphemes against God

New York's Governor, who has done his part to call down God's Chastisement, is once more showing his hatred of God.  As reported here, Governor Cuomo said that:

"Our behavior has stopped the spread of the virus. God did not stop the spread of the virus."

And so the same counterfeit Catholic who supports murdering innocent children in the womb and who has said publically that pro-lifers are "not welcome" in New York, is showing his atheism once again.

Rather than sackcloth and ashes, Andrew Cuomo prefers blasphemy and ingratitude.

Francis: When it comes to violence against women, do as I say, not as I do

“Women are sources of life, and yet they are continually offended, hurt, raped, forced to prostitute themselves, and to suppress the life they carry. Every violence inflicted on women is a desecration of God, who was born of a woman” - Francis

Dr. Germain Crises explains, "If those who lack virtue and holiness simulate what they lack, they practice hypocrisy, seeking by mere outward show to keep their reputation and to receive undeserved honor. As deceptive communication, all hypocrisy is at least venially sinful. The New Testament, however, condemns as a most grave sin a certain kind of hypocrisy: the pretense of sincere Faith by those who sinful

ly reject or pervert Jesus' gospel. While the enormity of their sin lay in their unbelief more than in their pretense, hypocrisy nevertheless can be a grave matter even without rejection of Faith..."

This isn't the first time Francis has displayed a violent temper. See here.

Francis reminds me of Joe Besser, see here.

Canada promotes the realm of disorder and the agenda of Hell

Mass Resistance notes:

"Bill Whatcott was convicted of 'mis-gendering' – telling people that a male wearing women’s clothes is actually a male, not a female. You read this correctly. This is how insane things have become in Canada. But the Tribunal declared that Whatcott’s (true) statements caused injury to the cross-dressing man’s 'dignity, feelings, and self-respect,' and therefore Whatcott must be punished. The Tribunal noted that truth is no defense."

Back in June of 2005 I posted the following here at La Salette Journey:

Those who are promoting the homosexual agenda are using time-proven tactics which have been employed by secular humanists for some time now. In the words of Ralph Martin, "First, a plea is issued for a dominantly Christian society to 'tolerate' what appears to be a deviant behavior. Then pressure is applied to place the deviant behavior on an equal footing with traditional Christian values. Secular humanists argue that a pluralist society cannot do otherwise. They then try to make the deviant behavior seem normal and behavior governed by Christian values seem abnormal - a threat to a pluralist society. The last step is often to use the legal system to protect immorality and to undermine what Christians have always considered righteous behavior." (A Crisis of Truth, pp. 101-102).

Professor James Hitchcock, in his excellent work entitled "Catholicism and Modernity" (New York: Seabury Press, 1979, p. 86), explains the role of the media in this entire process: "The media's alleged commitment to 'pluralism' is at base a kind of hoax. The banner of pluralism is raised in order to win toleration for new ideas as yet unacceptable to the majority. Once toleration has been achieved, public opinion is systematically manipulated first to enforce a status of equality between the old and the new, then to assert the superiority of the new over the old. A final stage is often the total discrediting, even sometimes the banning, of what had previously been orthodox." 

Father Patrick McHugh explains that, "The angels, like ourselves, have free will. Some of them turned from God; we humans can also reject grace in our turn. The beginning of hell is to listen to the serpent who urges us to decide for ourselves what is good or evil with out reference to God. Satan knows, if we do not, that there is no goodness or beauty or truth or love that are not sparks cast off from the Pure Source of Goodness and Beauty and Love and Truth that God is. We can no more create moral goodness on our own than we can create the stars. The goodness of honesty or integrity or chastity exists outside and beyond anything we may elect, vote for or decide.


Pope John Paul II has brilliantly analyzed this objectivity of moral goodness in his Encyclical, The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis splendor). What he insists on, if not in these exact words, is that the the moral law, like the law of gravitation, does not come from our consensus. It does not come from earth but from heaven. We are free to accept or reject it but we are not free to accept or reject the consequences. If we turn from the goodness of honesty or fidelity or compassion or responsibility or truth or love, if we turn from God deliberately and with malice, we enter into the realm of disorder, alienation and hate. We carry our personalities with us into eternity. We ratify what we have chosen to become. If we leave this world locked into ego, our choice of self apart from God becomes final, irrevocable and complete. This is known as hell."

No evidence supporting accusations against Judge Kavanaugh

Regarding the FBI Supplemental Investigation into Dr. Ford's accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, Fox News Reports:

"A source familiar with the supplemental report told Fox News it shows no evidence corroborating the allegations of sexual assault or misconduct against the nominee. Other specifics from the report were not immediately available, but Fox News is told the review included interviews with nine people, along with a sworn statement from another. This went beyond the original Senate request for interviews with four people, though the FBI did not dive into Kavanaugh's drinking habits in high school, one area of contention, because the Senate did not formally request the information."

There is mounting evidence that Dr. Ford may have commited perjury during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

See here for example.

Francis' Vatican engages in the same Fake News and media manipulation which he has condemned

Lifesite News reports:

One of the world’s leading news agencies has said the Vatican breached journalistic standards by doctoring a photo of a letter from Benedict XVI praising Pope Francis. According to the Associated Press, the doctoring affected the meaning of the letter.

The AP has reported the Vatican admitted on Wednesday that it digitally manipulated a photo sent out to media outlets to rebut critics of Pope Francis, who believe some aspects of his teaching represent a rupture with Pope Benedict’s, and with the Tradition of the Church.

On Monday, the eve of the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ election, the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications released the photo of a thank you letter Benedict XVI had written to the head of Vatican communications, Monsignor Dario Viganò, for the gift of an 11 volume set on the theology of Pope Francis.

At the press conference to launch the book project, Msgr. Viganò cited a portion of the letter that is legible in the photo, in which Benedict says he applauds the new volumes which are intended to oppose the “foolish prejudice” that paints Pope Francis only as  “a practical man without any particular theological or philosophical training,” and Pope Benedict as “only a theorist of theology who has little understanding of the concrete life of a Christian today.”

Benedict also said the book project “helps to show the interior continuity between the two pontificates, although with all the differences in style and temperament.”

But the attempt seems to have backfired, with the Vatican admitting on Wednesday that it blurred the final two lines of the first page, where Benedict begins to explain that he didn’t actually read the books in question.

On the second page of the letter, which is not visible in the photo, the Pope emeritus goes on to explain that he cannot contribute a theological assessment of Francis as requested by Viganò due to “physical reasons” and because he is occupied with other projects.

The Vatican offered no explanation as to why it blurred the lines, except to say it never intended for the full letter to be released. In fact, the entire second page of the letter is covered by a stack of books in the photo, with just Benedict’s tiny signature showing, apparently to prove its authenticity.

Associated Press journalist Nicole Winfield said that the missing content “significantly altered the meaning of the quotes the Vatican chose to highlight, which were widely picked up by the media.”

“Those quotes suggested that Benedict had read the volume, agreed with it and given it his full endorsement and assessment. The doctoring of the photo is significant because news media rely on Vatican photographers for images of the pope at events that are closed to independent media,” she said.

It’s unclear why the Vatican did not publish the full text but only an altered photo of the first page, with the final paragraph on the second page covered by the 11 books and Benedict’s signature at the bottom. Msgr. Viganò did read out the full text of the letter at Monday’s presentation. Veteran Vaticanist Sandro Magister transcribed the portions Vigano had read and posted them on his blog on Tuesday.

Regarding the doctored image, the Associated Press said that, like most media outlets, it follows strict standards that forbid digital manipulation of photos. AP standards dictate that “No element should be digitally added to or subtracted from any photograph.”

In January, Pope Francis denounced “Fake News” in his Message for the 52nd World Day of Communications, saying it employs the same strategy as the snake in the Garden of Eden.

______________________________

Recall that Francis has said that:


"Communication is part of God’s plan for us and an essential way to experience fellowship. Made in the image and likeness of our Creator, we are able to express and share all that is true, good, and beautiful. We are able to describe our own experiences and the world around us, and thus to create historical memory and the understanding of events. But when we yield to our own pride and selfishness, we can also distort the way we use our ability to communicate. This can be seen from the earliest times, in the biblical stories of Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel (cf. Gen 4:4-16; 11:1-9). The capacity to twist the truth is symptomatic of our condition, both as individuals and communities. On the other hand, when we are faithful to God’s plan, communication becomes an effective expression of our responsible search for truth and our pursuit of goodness.

In today’s fast-changing world of communications and digital systems, we are witnessing the spread of what has come to be known as “fake news”. This calls for reflection, which is why I have decided to return in this World Communications Day Message to the issue of truth, which was raised time and time again by my predecessors, beginning with Pope Paul VI, whose 1972 Message took as its theme: “Social Communications at the Service of Truth”. In this way, I would like to contribute to our shared commitment to stemming the spread of fake news and to rediscovering the dignity of journalism and the personal responsibility of journalists to communicate the truth.

1. What is “fake” about fake news?

The term “fake news” has been the object of great discussion and debate. In general, it refers to the spreading of disinformation on line or in the traditional media. It has to do with false information based on non-existent or distorted data meant to deceive and manipulate the reader. Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests.

The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible. Secondly, this false but believable news is “captious”, inasmuch as it grasps people’s attention by appealing to stereotypes and common social prejudices, and exploiting instantaneous emotions like anxiety, contempt, anger and frustration. The ability to spread such fake news often relies on a manipulative use of the social networks and the way they function. Untrue stories can spread so quickly that even authoritative denials fail to contain the damage.

The difficulty of unmasking and eliminating fake news is due also to the fact that many people interact in homogeneous digital environments impervious to differing perspectives and opinions. Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas. The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict. Fake news is a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes, and leads only to the spread of arrogance and hatred. That is the end result of untruth..."


Father Dominic Mary, MFVA, in the first of three homilies which draws from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the role of truth in the vocation of the Christian, explains that:


"In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

I. To Live the Truth

CCC, 2466 In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest. "Full of grace and truth," he came as the "light of the world," he is the Truth. "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know "the truth [that] will make you free" and that sanctifies. To follow Jesus is to live in "the Spirit of truth," whom the Father sends in his name and who leads "into all the truth."

CCC, 2464 [To represent the truth correctly …] flows from [our] vocation [as Christians] to bear witness to God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of [our] covenan[tal relationship].

CCC, 2467 Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it. [As the Second Vatican Council said]: "It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons . . . are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth."

CCC, 2468 Truth as uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness, sincerity, or candor. Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against [the following which are very similar to each other]:

— duplicity: [“contradictory doubleness of thought, speech or action” (Webster’s Dictionary)]
— dissimulation: “to hide under a false appearance” (Webster’s Dictionary)
— hypocrisy: “to effect virtues that one really does not have” OR “the false appearance of the virtue of religion” (Webster’s Dictionary)

CCC, 2469 [As St. Thomas wrote,] "men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another." The virtue of truth gives another his just due. Truthfulness … entails honesty and discretion.

CCC, 2470 The disciple of Christ consents to "live in the truth," that is, in the simplicity of a life in conformity with the Lord's example, abiding in his truth. "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth."

Bearing this in mind, what must we think of Francis in Rome, who warns of false prophets, duplicity and hypocrisy while exhibiting these very offenses against truth and charity?

Francis and offenses against truth and charity...

Father Dominic Mary, MFVA, in the first of three homilies which draws from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the role of truth in the vocation of the Christian, explains that:


"In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

I. To Live the Truth

CCC, 2466 In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest. "Full of grace and truth," he came as the "light of the world," he is the Truth. "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know "the truth [that] will make you free" and that sanctifies. To follow Jesus is to live in "the Spirit of truth," whom the Father sends in his name and who leads "into all the truth."

CCC, 2464 [To represent the truth correctly …] flows from [our] vocation [as Christians] to bear witness to God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of [our] covenan[tal relationship].

CCC, 2467 Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it. [As the Second Vatican Council said]: "It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons . . . are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth."

CCC, 2468 Truth as uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness, sincerity, or candor. Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against [the following which are very similar to each other]:

— duplicity: [“contradictory doubleness of thought, speech or action” (Webster’s Dictionary)]
— dissimulation: “to hide under a false appearance” (Webster’s Dictionary)
— hypocrisy: “to effect virtues that one really does not have” OR “the false appearance of the virtue of religion” (Webster’s Dictionary)

CCC, 2469 [As St. Thomas wrote,] "men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another." The virtue of truth gives another his just due. Truthfulness … entails honesty and discretion.

CCC, 2470 The disciple of Christ consents to "live in the truth," that is, in the simplicity of a life in conformity with the Lord's example, abiding in his truth. "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth."

Bearing this in mind, what must we think of Francis in Rome, who warns of false prophets, duplicity and hypocrisy while exhibiting these very offended against truth and charity?

Is it not dishonest and duplicitous for Francis to suggest he maintains a "zero tolerance" policy toward sexual abuse only to ignore complaints regarding the same while asserting that he never received such complaints?

As Dr. Germain Crises explains, "If those who lack virtue and holiness simulate what they lack, they practice hypocrisy, seeking by mere outward show to keep their reputation and to receive undeserved honor.  As deceptive communication, all hypocrisy is at least venially sinful.  The New Testament, however, condemns as a most grave sin a certain kind of hypocrisy: the pretense of sincere Faith by those who sinfully reject or pervert Jesus' gospel.  While the enormity of their sin lay in their unbelief more than in their pretense, hypocrisy nevertheless can be a grave matter even without rejection of Faith.  For those who are role models, sinning gravely in ways others can observe, while hypocritically maintaining that their behavior is not sinful, clearly is grave matter, because it is scandalous."


Time and again Francis has railed against hypocrisy, pharisaism, duplicitousness and rigidity.

To which I would suggest: Physician heal thyself!

The far-left conspiracy against Donald Trump...

From The Washington Examiner:

"The House Intelligence Committee has released its controversial memo outlining alleged abuses of secret surveillance by the FBI and Justice Department in the Trump-Russia investigation. Here are some key points:

* The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.


* Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.

* The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications.

* DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele's bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.


The FBI and Justice Department mounted a monthslong effort to keep the information outlined in the memo out of the House Intelligence Committee's hands. Only the threat of contempt charges and other forms of pressure forced the FBI and Justice to give up the material.

Once Intelligence Committee leaders and staff compiled some of that information into the memo, the FBI and Justice Department, supported by Capitol Hill Democrats, mounted a ferocious campaign of opposition, saying release of the memo would endanger national security and the rule of law.

But Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes never wavered in his determination to make the information available to the public. President Trump agreed, and, as required by House rules, gave his approval for release.


Finally, the memo released today does not represent the sum total of what House investigators have learned in their review of the FBI and Justice Department Trump-Russia investigation. That means the fight over the memo could be replayed in the future when the Intelligence Committee decides to release more information."

_________________________


"As soon as men have, all of them, denied God, man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man-God will appear." - Ivan Karamazov in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov."

It does not take a gift of prophecy to see that humanity is presently polarizing and that all men are beginning to fall into the ranks of accepting either the man-god or the God Man...Dostoyevsky...knew that atheism had to be associated with the destruction of the old society. There was some suggestion that an overplanned or socialistic society had to be the prelude of an atheistic society...

This is precisely why far-left, Godless Democrats have sought to destroy President Donald Trump and worked so feverishly to undermine his candidacy for the Presidency.  He stands in the way of the planned Luciferic State.

For the man-god to grow in age and wisdom, two conditions must be fulfilled. The heavens must be emptied, and man must be secularized. Both will be achieved by turning freedom into license. Men will be asked to give up God because His Commandments 'enslave' and because our will often runs counter to His. When finally everyone has his own will and does whatever he pleases, then there will be a chaos due to the conflict of egotisms. It will then be necessary for Big Brother, or the state, to organize this chaos into a closed socialist society and the formulas given by the character, Shigalev, the theorist of the Communism to come: 'Having set out from unlimited freedom, I have ended up with unlimited despotism.'" (Archbishop Fulton John Sheen).

Stay tuned as we discover more about the Deep State.  Just because some deranged individuals see conspiracies everywhere doesn't mean that conspiracies don't exist.  Judas was a conspirator was he not?  Read what Dr. Alice von Hildebrand has to say about conspiracies, Americans and their naivete here.

Related reading here.

Francis neglects to mention Holy Fear...

"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more now in my absence,) with fear and trembling work out your salvation." (Philippians 2:12).



EWTN reports:

"Pope Francis on Sunday cautioned against having a 'mistaken' idea of God as harsh and punishing, saying this fear will end up paralyzing us and preventing us from doing good, rather than spreading his love and mercy.

'Fear always immobilizes and often leads us to make bad choices,' the Pope said Nov. 19. 'Fear discourages us from taking the initiative, and encourages us to seek refuge in safe and guaranteed solutions, and so we end up doing nothing good.'

To go forward and grow on the path of life, he said, 'we must not be afraid, but we have to trust.'

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square during his Sunday Angelus address on the first-ever World Day for the Poor, which he implemented at the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.

In his speech, the Pope turned to the day's Gospel reading from Matthew, which recounts the parable of the talents. In the passage, a master goes on a long trip and entrusts three servants with different talents, but when he returns, only two have gained profit from it, while the third buried his out of fear.

This parable 'makes us understand how important it is to have a true idea of God,' Francis said, noting that the third servant didn't really trust his master, but but feared him, and this fear prevented him from acting.

We shouldn't think that God is 'an evil, harsh and severe master who wants to punish us,' the Pope said, explaining that if we have this 'mistaken image of God, then our lives cannot be fruitful, because we will live in fear and this will not lead us to anything constructive.'

Fear, he said, paralyzes us and so is self-destructive..."

But not all fear is destructive.  This is simply false.  As Father Cantalamessa explains:

"Jesus says: 'Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear rather him who has the power to make both the soul and the body perish in Gehenna.' We must not be afraid of, nor fear human beings; we must fear God but not be afraid of him.

There is a difference between being afraid and fearing and I would like to take this occasion to try to understand why this is so and in what this difference consists. Being afraid is a manifestation of our fundamental instinct for preservation. It is a reaction to a threat to our life, the response to a real or perceived danger, whether this be the greatest danger of all, death, or particular dangers that threaten our tranquility, our physical safety, or our affective world.

With respect to whether the dangers are real or imagined, we say that someone is 'justifiably' or 'unjustifiably' or 'pathologically' afraid. Like sicknesses, this worry can be acute or chronic. If it is acute, it has to do with states determined by situations of extraordinary danger. If I am about to be hit by a car or I begin to feel the earth quake under my feet, this is being acutely afraid. These 'scares' arise suddenly and without warning and cease when the danger has passed, leaving, if anything, just a bad memory. Being chronically afraid is to be constantly in a state of preoccupation, this state grows up with us from birth or childhood and becomes part of our being, and we end up developing an attachment to it. We call such a state a complex or phobia: claustrophobia, agoraphobia, and so on.

The Gospel helps to free us from all of these worries and reveals their relative, non-absolute, nature. There is something of ours that nothing and no one in the world can truly take away from us or damage: For believers it is the immortal soul; for everyone it is the testimony of their own conscience.

The fear of God is quite different from being afraid. The fear of God must be learned: "Come, my children, listen to me," a Psalm says, "I will teach you the fear of the Lord" (33:12); being afraid, on the other hand, does not need to be learned at school; it overtakes us suddenly in the face of danger; the things themselves bring about our being afraid.

But the meaning itself of fearing God is different from being afraid. It is a component of faith: It is born from knowledge of who God is. It is the same sentiment that we feel before some great spectacle of nature. It is feeling small before something that is immense; it is stupor, marvel mixed with admiration. Beholding the miracle of the paralytic who gets up on his feet and walks, the Gospel says, "Everyone was in awe and praised God; filled with fear they said: ‘Today we have seen wondrous things'" (Luke 5:26). Fear is here simply another name for stupor and praise.

This sort of fear is a companion of and allied to love: It is the fear of offending the beloved that we see in everyone who is truly in love, even in the merely human realm. This fear is often called "the beginning of wisdom" because it leads to making the right choices in life. Indeed it is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit! (cf. Isaiah 11:2).

As always, the Gospel does not only illumine our faith but it also helps us to understand the reality of everyday life. Our time has been called "the age of anxiety" (W.H. Auden). Anxiety, which is closely related to being afraid, has become the sickness of the century and it is, they say, one of the principal causes of the large number of heart attacks. This spread of anxiety seems connected with the fact that, compared with the past, we have many more forms of economic insurance, life insurance, many more means of preventing illness and delaying death.

The cause of this anxiety is the diminishing — if not the complete disappearance — in our society of the holy fear of God. 'No one fears God anymore!' We say this sometimes jokingly but it contains a tragic truth. The more that the fear of God diminishes, the more we become afraid of our fellow men!

It is easy to understand why this is the case. Forgetting God, we place all our confidence in the things of this world, that is, in the things that Christ says 'thieves can steal and moths consume' — uncertain things that can disappear from one moment to the next, that time (and moths!) inexorably consume, things that everyone is after and which therefore cause competition and rivalry (the famous 'mimetic desire' of which René Girard speaks), things that need to be defended with clenched teeth and, sometimes, with a gun in hand.

The decline in fear of God, rather than liberating us from worry, gets us more entangled in worry. Look at what happens in the relationship between children and parents in our society. Fathers no longer fear God and children no longer fear fathers! The fear of God is reflected in and analogous to the reverential fear of children for parents. The Bible continually associates the two things. But does the lack of this reverential fear for their parents make the children and young people of today more free and self-confident? We know well that the exact opposite is true.

The way out of the crisis is to rediscover the necessity and the beauty of the holy fear of God. Jesus explains to us in the Gospel that we will hear on Sunday that the constant companion of the fear of God is confidence in God. 'Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows!'

God does not want us to be afraid of him but to have confidence in him. It is the contrary of that emperor who said: 'Oderint dum metuant' — 'Let them hate me so long as they are afraid of me!' Our earthly fathers must imitate God; they must not make us afraid of them but have confidence in them. It is in this way that respect is nourished: admiration, confidence, everything that falls under the name of 'holy fear.'"

Francis offers a false conception of you and a theology of presumption.  See here and here.



Related reading here

Bishop Mitchell Rozanski wants to pay respect to the Reformation which was against the Holy Spirit

From Lifesite News:

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has rebuked the secretary-general of the Italian Episcopal Conference for claiming that the Protestant Reformation was an 'event of the Holy Spirit.'

It is "unacceptable to assert that Luther's reform ‘was an event of the Holy Spirit,’" wrote Cardinal Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a recent article published in the Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. 

"On the contrary, it was against the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit helps the Church to maintain her continuity through the Church’s magisterium, above all in the service of the Petrine ministry: on Peter has Jesus founded His Church (Mt 16:18), which is 'the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth' (1 Tim 3:15)," the cardinal wrote.

“The Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself,” added Müller.

Müller’s rebuke was directed to a verbatim quote of the secretary-general of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, who spoke on the topic October 19 at the Pontifical University of the Lateran.

During his address on the topic of “the spirituality of the Reformation in ecclesial practice,” Galantino reportedly said, “The Reformation was, is, and will be in the future, an event of the Spirit,” and “The Reformation carried out by Martin Luther 500 years ago was an event of the Holy Spirit,” according to various Italian media.

Exactly.  The "Reformation" was against the Holy Spirit.  Which probably explains why Bishop Mitchell Rozanski wants to pay respect to it.  See here.

Our sad time.

More on the blasphemy at Saint Mary's Church in Orange, Massachusetts...

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2148, teaches that, "Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God - inwardly or outwardly - words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name. St. James condemns those 'who blaspheme that honorable name [of Jesus] by which you are called.' The prohibition of blasphemy extends to language against Christ's Church, the saints, and sacred things. It is also blasphemous to make use of God's name to cover up criminal practices, to reduce peoples to servitude, to torture persons or put them to death. The misuse of God's name to commit a crime can provoke others to repudiate religion.
Blasphemy is contrary to the respect due God and his holy name. It is in itself a grave sin."

In my last post, I examined the blasphemy committed by Father Piotr Pawlus in a homily given last weekend at Saint Mary's Church in Orange, Massachusetts.  Specifically, Fr. Pawlus asserted that the Fifteenth Chapter of Matthew, verses 21-28, reveals Jesus' "warts."  This confused priest else asserted that the Canaanite woman bested Jesus in argument.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, in His Compendium of Theology, writes, "Inasmuch as Christ is God and the Word of God, He is the begotten Wisdom of the Father, as 1 Corinthians 1:24 indicates: 'Christ the power of God and the Wisdom of God.' For the interior word of any intellectual being is nothing else than the conception of wisdom.  And since, as we said above, the Word of God is perfect and is one with God, He must be the perfect conception of the Wisdom of God the Father.  Consequently, whatever is contained in the Wisdom of God the Father as unbegotten is contained wholly in the Word as begotten and conceived.  And so we are told, in Colossians 2:3:, that in Him (namely, in Christ), 'are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.'"

And yet, Father Pawlus would have us believe that the Lord Jesus has "warts" or imperfections.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Doctor of the Church and a great moral theologian, says that:

"All Sins are Hateful, in the Sight-of God; but the Sin of Blasphemy ought more-Properly to be Called, an Abomination-to the Lord. Every Mortal Sin, as the Apostle says, Dishonors God. "Thou that makest thy Boast of the Law, by Transgression of the Law, Dishonourest God" - Romans 2:23. Other Sins Dishonor God Indirectly, by the Violation-of His Law; but Blasphemy Dishonors Him Directly, by the Profanation of His Holy Name. Hence Saint Chrysostom teaches that no Sin Exasperates the Lord so-much-as the Sin of Blasphemy, against His Adorable Name. "Nihil ita exacerbat Deum, sicut quando nomen ejus blasphematur". Dearly Beloved Christians, allow me then, this Day, to show you First (1st), the Great Enormity-of the Sin of Blasphemy; Secondly (2nd), the Great Rigor, with which God Punishes it." See full article here.

It is significant that while I was banned from Saint Mary's Facebook page for defending the perennial teaching of the Church, such filth is tolerated and even applauded at Holy Mass.

Saint Mary's has become a haunt of demons.  A place where blasphemy against Our Lord is, apparently, most welcome.

Bishop Antonio Carlos Cruz Santos: Blaspheming against God

"Homosexuality is not hardwired...whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations."

"..there is an inescapable component of heritability to many human behavioral traits. For virtually none of them is heredity ever close to predictive."

-Dr. Francis S. Collins, one of the world's leading scientists who works at the cutting edge of DNA.



Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz,  having succumbed to diabolic disorientation, is now asserting that homosexuality may just be a "gift" from God.  During a recent homily, the confused Bishop said: "From the perspective of faith when you look at homosexuality, you can’t say it’s a choice.  Choice is one thing that you freely choose and no one chooses orientation.  One day the person finds out with this or that orientation.  Choice will be the way you will live your orientation.  Whether in a dignified, ethical, or in a promiscuous way.  But promiscuity can be lived in any of the orientations one has.  So since it is not choice, since it is not an option, since the World Health Organization, since the 90’s no longer considers it as an illness, from the perspective of faith, we have only one answer.  If it is not a choice, if it is not an illness, from the perspective of faith, it can only be a gift.  It is given by God.  This is a gift: it is given by God.  There’s no other way!  If it is not a choice, if it is not a disease, it is a gift, it is given by God.”

Read the statement from Dr. Collins again. Translated simply, this brilliant scientist is saying that while genes might predispose a person toward homosexuality, they do not predetermine the behavior.  A person still has free will.  Which is why homosexual persons can change their sexual orientation.

Bishop Cruz would have you believe that homosexual persons are born that way and that science validates homosexuality.  But the Catholic Medical Association, in Homosexuality and Hope, summarizes the reality:


"A number of researchers have sought to find a biological cause for same-sexual attraction.  The media have promoted the idea that a 'gay gene' has already been discovered...but, in spite of several attempts, none of the much-publicized studies...has been scientifically replicated.  A number of authors have carefully reviewed these studies and found that not only do the studies not prove a genetic basis for same-sex attraction; the reports do not even contain such claims...If same-sex attraction were genetically determined, then one would expect identical twins to be identical in their sexual attractions.  There are, however, numerous reports of identical twins who are not identical in their sexual attractions." (Homosexuality and Hope, Catholic Medical Association, p. 2).

Bishop Cruz and other homosexual propagandists need to reflect very carefully on the hard science which disproves the notion that "gay" people are "born that way."

As for homosexual relationships, Dutch psychologist Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, Ph.D., a specialist on homosexuality, writes:

"The term neurotic describes such relationships [same-sex] well. It suggests the ego-centeredness of the relationship; the attention-seeking instead of loving...Neurotic, in short, suggests all kinds of dramas and childish conflicts as well as the basic disinterestedness of in the partner, notwithstanding the shallow pretensions of 'love.' Nowhere is there more self-deception in the homosexual than in his representation of himself as a lover. One partner is important to the other only insofar as he satisfies that other's needs. Real, unselfish love for a desired partner would, in fact, end up destroying homosexual 'love'!" (Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, The Battle for Normality, Ignatius Press, 1997, pp. 62-63).


"Van den Aardweg says that the claim that homosexuality is normal is one of those statements that are "so foolish that only intellectuals could believe them." It is like saying that anorexia nervosa is healthy. And he denies that homesexuality is caused by the genes, or the structure of the brain; the evidence shows that it is acquired. Nor is it a necessary result of effeminacy; it is the child's "self-perception as masculine or feminine" that makes the difference. It is caused by pressure to develop an opposite-sex role. Often mothers do not view or treat their sons as "real men," and fathers do not view or treat their daughters as "real girls." (From the Catholic Insight book review of "The Battle for Normality."

Bishop Cruz is blaspheming against God.  He is asserting that God "gifted" the people of Sodom and Gomorrah with the homosexual "orientation," and then exterminated them in His wrath.

This is equivalent to saying that God is: a.  The Author of evil inclinations and b. That He is unjust ( "gifting" people with a sinful inclination and then destroying them with fire for acting on this "gift."